Re:OT: World of Disney NYC

[Gurgitoy2]

I noticed that too when I visited the other day. I didn't ask anyone, so I just thought the stuff sold out. It's a shame, because I went back to see what stuff had come in. I did look at the Art of Disneyland book too, and it is nice, but not worth the $75 price tag if you ask me. I'm more and more disappointed with the NYC World of Disney store...it's not much more than the old Disney Store. Princesses, Pooh, and plush...

 

[SharonKurland]

What? Not Stitch? You'd think he's taken over WDW....

 

[Gurgitoy2]

I guess he must be focused on WDW, since he's only got a small presence in NYC.

 

[Michael Zielski]

That's too bad about the NYC Disney store......we're going to be spending some time down in Connecticut next week, visiting our families(an hour train ride out of NYC) and a trip to the Big Apple is a possibility--more to see Miyazaki's latest film, "Howl's Moving Caste"--who knows when it'll make it to Maine! Have any New York people seen it? A side trip to the Disney store wouldn't have been out of the question, but sounds like it may not necessarily be worth it; the last time we were in New York--yikes, I think it might have been to see Fantasia 2000 at the IMAX--the Disney Store still had a Gallery section, which I think is now either gone, or miniaturized. Anyway.....on a brighter note, again--anyone seen "Howl's----"?

Mike

 

[SharonKurland]

My husband did, this past Saturday (it was playing at the Pleasure Island AMC). He liked it quite a bit.

It's funny...the characters from "Howl" was all over the Ghibli Museum when we visited that in Tokyo in April...but since almost everything was written in Japanese, it didn't help him "know" the characters ahead of time. Now understands them in context!

-Sharon-
(who liked Princess Mononoke but thought Spirited Away was "too Japanese" [with all due respect to Yoshi ...I just don't think that one translated as well as Mononoke did]

 

[Michael Zielski]

Thanks, Sharon--nice to have you back!(?)

Let's take it further OT, now that we're talking Japan--how was the English/Japanese language "barrier", particularly at the Disney parks??? My son(and me, for that matter!) would love to go--I missed your "review" of your trip, if there was one!

Michael

 

[SharonKurland]

Michael-

This is the 2nd time that I've been to Japan...1st time was in 1994. I knew about a dozen words and phrases in Japanese both trips (not including numbers...I can count to 99 in Japanese), but they were important ones:

Good morning
Good afternoon
Good evening
Goodbye
Yes
No
Please
Thank-you
You're welcome
I'm sorry
Excuse me
Toilet

I found that one's ability to communicate in "basic English" (as opposed to a friend of mine, who would go into long sentences and then was upset that no one could understand him) went a LONG way (think of whatever foreign language you took in school...chances are you're not conversational with it, right? But if someone spoke it to you slowly and with simple words, it'd be easier, yes? It's the same thing for a Japanese trying to speak in English with us).

I also "thought ahead" and used English-speaking Japanese to my advantage ("OK, this woman at Guest Servies speaks REALLY good English...let's as HER where we can find a laundromat so we're ready for when we want to do laundry tomorrow).

Menus at the TDLR park are in English. Menus in Japan are sometimes in English (provided you're in a city where there are are lot of Engish-speaking people, ie Tokyo, Kyoto...the big cities). Lots of cheaper places only have "plastic food" in their window (or pictures in their menus) and they expect you to point to what you want.

I think the biggest help in communication was to do our homework, know what we wanted ahead of time (ie directions from Point A to Point B), be able to appropriately pronounce names of cities and places (if it's written in Romanji [Japanese words written in English characters] it's pretty easy to understand the pronounciation) and understand how Japan works. It saves lots of need for communication if you already know what to expect (ie you generally don't get refills on drinks on Japan, so don't ask for one ...public bathrooms don't have hand towels and sometimes not toilet paper, so bring/buy a washcloth and some Charmin to Go [or take a pack of tissues from the person at the entrance to the train station...the tissues had advertisements on them] because that's how they do it in Japan).

Let's put it this way....we spent a day in Tokyo with a friend of my husband's and a friend of the friend). I spoke those 12 words/phrases of Japanese...Joe spoke about 5, Steve 3, Joe's friend 200 and Joe's friend's friend 50. We had the most basic conversations you've ever seen, but except for TLDR, it was the best part of the whole trip .

My trip reports are SLOW in coming. They're a PITA to do, so I only do them when the whim hits me and then I get 1 or 2 days done at a time. I WILL make an "Announcement" when they're all done, okeedone?

-Sharon-
Orlando FL

 

[Michael Zielski]

Thanks so much for your time, and the quick "tutorial", Sharon--I should probably print it out and stick it with my Tokyo Disney CD's, for future reference, if the time ever seems right.....

One other quick question--was Tokyo DisneySea as incredible as it has always looked to me? An "E-ticket park"? I'm a sucker for the Jules Verne adventure themes.......

Mike

 

[TomTO]

I'm actually heading off to NYC next week for a day and the World of Disney was on the top of my list. Not so sure now. On a happier note, I ordered my LE of Disneyland Music from them last week. Received it in the mail today. That was quick, and I'm from Canada.

- Tom

 

[SharonKurland]

Mike-

In actuality, they have very few "E-Ticket" attractions, in the sense of what we would usually call E-Ticket rides. "Journey To The Center of The Earth" is one, as is "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull."

HOWEVER (and that's a HUGE "however")...

Their attention to detail is just amazing. The park is just SO visually appealing (and so CLEAN!) that I spent the better part of our 1st day there with my mouth wide open, saying, "Incredible. Just incredible. Amazing what yu can do if you're willing to spend the money". And add that to the fact that they have SO many attractions there that are NOWHERE else, and the things that would nomally be considered one letter get "bumped up" a letter, IMHO.

"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" is based on the now-defunct stateside attractions, which would normally put it at a borderline D...but it's souped up, with lasers and latest-generation audioanimatronics and lighting and queue detail and the list goes on and on, so it is most definitely an E ticket, IMHO. Or if not an E, then a "D and 3/4" .

The whole indoor Little Mermaid Lagoon is basically a kiddie park...but is done so well that it easily goes from a C to a D.

Aquatopia. They took a "Mr.'s Toad's Wide Ride" (riding around, having no control over steering and almost banging into things), put it outside and turned it into a water-based attraction that uses GSP, for crying out loud! From a state-of-the-art technology POV, it's amazing!

They are also getting two (count 'em, TWO) bona fide E Ticket rides this summer....a Indy-themed looping roller coaster and a Tower of Terror attraction (with a new story and a new theme).

For some really cool TDLR videos, I recommend the following sites:

http://www.jtcent.com/main.html (towards the bottom)

http://www.themeparkreview.com/videos/video.htm (besides the TDL clips, don't forget to watch the Nara Dreamland one too....Nara Dreamland is a horrible Disneyland knockoff that was built in the early 1960's. The video is hysterical!)

-Sharon-
Orlando FL

 

[brianfreno]

Nara Dreamland is the funniest thing I've ever seen.

 

[SharonKurland]

The park was HYSTERICAL. In my daily journal (which I WILL post someday...it's just a LONG timne coming because it's a PITA to post all the pictures and add to the various stories), I went into ite funny-horriblness of it in a lot of detail too.

It's a must-see, if you're cynical

 

[Michael Zielski]

Whew.....finally back, Sharon--and thanks for your "review"--amazing details(Walt would like that), mouth wide open(because of the sushi, too?)--looks like you've confirmed my suspicions! Sounds like an "E-ticket park", not only because of some of the attractions themselves, but as you say, because of the overall visual experience--it's definitely on my "things to do" list--and thanks for the links!

Mike

 

[SharonKurland]

It's absolutely amazing, Michael. A definite "must see" for ANY Disney fan and it's not necessarily as financially prohibitive as one might think. OK yeah, the airfare is MAJORLY expensive...but if you've got a good Frequent Flyer program and don't mind going Coach, it can be done for "free" for 60,000 miles per person (Business Class is 120,000 FFMs PP...that's what we did, after TEN YEARS of saving up our FFMs and using our Amex for EVERYTHING, including small purchases ). The hotels are like at WDW...you can stay on site for $400 per night....OR you can stay nearby for significantly less and just be a few train stops away. The "park food" prices were about the same, or only slightly higher than here. Souveniers are up to you and when you KNOW that the cost of shipping is prohibitive (TDLR ONLY uses overnight express), you're more able to cut down on your list of "must have's."

It CAN be done. It takes planning. And patience. But it is WELL worth it. Remember that I am one of THE most cynical Disney fans known to man...I sneer at every cost-cutting measure...and am angry as I mourn the loss of what Disney "used" to be...and this place actually managed to make me feel something I hadn't felt about Disney in, ohgod, ten years or more...

...that it was magical.

 

[The Genii]

I've been to Tokyo about 20 times, and to Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea about four.

You can stay at the Hilton Tokyo Bay for as low as $220 a night, a HUGE savings over the Disney Mira Costa or Ambassor hotels. The Hilton is directly next to the park and on the Disneyland Resort Liner (aka monorail) line. You are staying on Disney property and it's a beautiful hotel. The staff speaks English. In fact, everyone who works at the Tokyo Disney Resort speaks English.

Tokyo DisneySea is a great park, but compared to Tokyo Disneyland it has far fewer attractions. Even though the Oriental Land Company dropped about 3 billion dollars to build DisneySea and Miracosta (versus the 1.3 billion Disney dropped to build California Adventure and the Grand Californian Hotel), the end result is much the same in some ways: neither park can compare to the original next door which has a lot more rides.

When the lines at Tokyo Disneyland are 100 minutes for the top E-tickets, there are no lines at Tokyo DisneySea for anything--by late afternoon almost every attraction is a walk-on (just like DCA). That's the because the Japanese and Californians haven't learned what everyone who goes to Disney WORLD knows--a park doesn't have to be the Magic Kingdom in order to still be a DISNEY park.

If you've been going to Orlando for years, do you walk around in Epcot and think it really isn't a Disney park? No. It's just another type of Disney park.

But, the folks in California and Tokyo don't quite get that, and both parks are suffering in identical ways for it.

Building an off-the shelf looping roller coaster, and putting in a Tower of Terror, will not change the essential problem about getting bodies into DisneySea (just as putting Tower of Terror into California Adventure didn't change its attendence very much). People, other than those who frequent Orlando, just can't get it out of their heads that the Magic Kingdom next door has a LOT more to do. And that's where they tend to go.

I'm not going to compare DisneySea and DCA because it would be absurd--the Tokyo park is stunning and has wonderful attractions--it is a WORLD CLASS park. DCA is a place I enjoy going, but it isn't in the same league as DisneySea.

 

[Michael Zielski]

Wow, Sharon......magical; it's nice to know that it's not just a shop-worn cliche--it still can be made to happen. That's a very reassuring thought.

Mike

 

[SharonKurland]

Hand raised.

I did. So what?

If you have something else to say about the World of Disney store in NYC and would like to bring the topic back to that, please feel free to make your comment, ask your question or what have you. If not, I recommend you get off your finger-pointing high horse (aptly named "Anal Rentention") and realize that most normal conversations tend to flow from one subject to another.

In case you were late for the Clue Train, this message is way past its early developmental stages and the flow has begun. Better bring a pad...this is gonna get messy.

-Sharon-
Orlando FL

 

[Gurgitoy2]

Well...ahem...

Who on the forum has been to the new World of Disney store in NYC? Have any of you also been to that same location when it was the flagship Disney Store? I had lots of hope for the changeover, but alas, my hopes were dashed. The place didn't change much cosmetically from the old store. The merchandise isn't much better. The only plus side for me is that there is stuff from WDW availble, but even that wears thin. Don't even get me started on the Cinderella's Princess Court thing...

Just thought I'd bring this back around before certain people start dragging the horse around by the rear...

 

[SharonKurland]

I had been to the flagship TDS many, many times, when I lived in Staten Island. We were already living in FL way before it changed to TDS to WOD. In fact, as I recall, we were visiting NYC while it was closed for renovations for the "changeover." But I haven't seen it in its newest form yet. WDW merchandise doesn't do much for me nowadays (I live 10 miles away from WDW and rarely buy anything) and I think that the whole Princess line should sit on a Pooh plush and rotate...so I doubt there's a whole lot there for me.

-Sharon-
Orlando FL

 

[Gurgitoy2]

Sharon, I'd be willing to bet that you'd be disappointed with what you find at the NYC store now. Seriously, since you're so close to the WDW World of Disney Store, that one is SOOO much better than this one. I wish the NYC store had a bigger home section. Right now, it's just a few shelves with some dishes & stuff. The majority of the store is Princess crap, toys & plush. There's a big ol' Goofy's Candy section, but it's boring. Plus the gallery has been turned into the waiting area for the Cinderella show that excludes boys and other family members. It breaks all of Walt's reasons for building Disneyland. I doubt he would have had a show that only allowed little girls in, and told the parents and little brothers to wait outside...

...Oh, but they have an "interactive" video game section for the boys....yeah, that's a good substitute for meeting a Disney character!